Victory! Department of Ed. Withdraws Proposal to Weaken Accountability for Gender Equity in Nontraditional Education Programs

February 28, 2007

In response to pressure from the public, Congress and groups like NOW, the Department of Education recently announced that it would drop a proposal that would have weakened measures of accounting for gender equity in non-traditional training programs. This announcement came at the end of a public comment period during which the Department of Education received a large volume of public comments about the proposed change. NOW was among the many groups who submitted comments to the Department of Education decrying this proposal. Read the comments NOW submitted (PDF).

In January, the Department of Education had proposed a revision to the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, a law that provides guidelines for programs for career and technical education students. The revision would have combined two existing accountability measures—measures of women's participation in nontraditional training programs and completion of such programs—into one measure. This proposal would have severely limited the ability to track women's participation in nontraditional training programs, making it very difficult to ensure gender equity in such programs. Non-traditional training programs are those that prepare women for vocations that usually do not employ women—like carpentry, truck driving or construction management—and frequently involve higher-paying jobs.